Hana Norfolk awaits high school graduation and the testing that will determine her future occupation. She’s worked hard and aims high—a government job maybe, but instead of optimism she’s filled with dread. Her mother has the mutation, and without chemo drugs her chances of survival are slim. She overhears a secret conversation and gains hope, along with the friendship of the hospital orderly, Fischer. But as her mother fails, she realizes that the Greaters who oversee her small dystopian state have a sinister agenda that doesn’t include saving Middler’s deemed dispensable, much less the Lessor cast doomed to slavery. Religion has been outlawed, and yet Hana begins the dangerous quest to discover whether there is a God and what happens when people die.
Vanquished, with its chillingly plausible dystopian future, will challenge readers to ponder faith and recognize the freedom and privileges enjoyed in American society today. This freedom, which was hard fought for, can be too easily lost, and how will our society fare when times get tough and tyranny takes hold? The plot is not resolved at the conclusion and therefore interested readers need to be prepared to obtain the 2nd book.
Age Range: 12 and up
Genre: Dystopian
Series: Enslaved, Book 1 of 3
Watershed Books (Pelican), 2014
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